8.
Other Rules Concerning Animals on Land

from
the Biblical Books of Moses (Torah)

and
the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah)

Other
Rules Concerning Animals on Land

From
the Biblical Books of Moses (Torah)

Israelites
do not eat the sinew that covers the hollow of the thigh of an animal.[1]
(Editor’s note: This is based on the text of the story of Jacob
wrestling with God rather than on an explicitly recorded “commandment” from
God.)

Animals
that go on their paws, among those who go on all four, are unclean*
to an Israelite and touching the carcass of one of them makes the person impure
until the evening.[2]
An animal that goes on its belly, goes on all four or has many feet is an
abomination.[3]

Creeping
animals are unclean to an Israelite and not permitted for eating.[4]
Such forbidden creeping animals include the weasel, the mouse, the lizard (or
tortoise), the gecko and the chameleon.[5]
(Editor’s note: The names of these creeping animals vary from
translation to translation because their identities are not completely known.)

An
ox that gores a person to death must be stoned; its flesh may not be eaten.[6]

Other
Rules Concerning Animals on Land

Jewish
Law (Halakha) from the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah)

The
punishment for eating the sinew in the hollow of the thigh of a clean* animal, but not an unclean one, is flogging.[7]
This punishment is applicable only if the quantity eaten is at least the size
of an olive or if the whole sinew is eaten even if the whole sinew is smaller
than an olive.[8]
An additional flogging is warranted for each sinew eaten either whole or in
excess of an olive’s bulk.[9]

Eating
a creeping animal violates a negative commandment of the Torah (Leviticus
11:41). Therefore the punishment for eating an amount of such a creeping animal
equal to the size of an olive is flogging. These creeping animals are things
like snakes, scorpions, beetles and centipedes.[10]
If a person eats one or more of the creeping things listed
in the Torah (Leviticus 11:29-30), then flogging is the
punishment if the total quantity of all of them eaten is equal to the size of a
lentil.[11]
(Creeping animals are also a source of ritual impurity.)

________________

*We
use the words "clean" and "unclean" to refer to animal
species that are permitted (kosher) or forbidden for eating; other things or
people are referred to as being "pure" or "impure" or,
occasionally for more clarity, as "ritually pure" or "ritually
impure." A separate section of this website is devoted solely to the issue
of ritual purity in Judaism.

MT:
The Mishneh Torah of Maimonides (Code of Maimonides). The names of the
specific books and treatises within each book are given according to the Yale
University Press translation and also the Moznaim/Touger Hebrew
transliterations to facilitate locating the texts posted here.

F:
indicates page numbers in the Feldheim Publishers, Ltd., translation of Book 1
of the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, the Book of Knowledge.

M:
indicates page numbers in the relevant volume of the Moznaim Publishing
Corporation’s Touger translation. (Some of the books of Mishneh Torah
are published in several volumes by Moznaim, so the Moznaim volume numbers do
not correspond to the Book numbers of Maimonides’ work.)

Y: indicates
page numbers in the translation of the Yale University Press Judaica Series.